


There Will Be Dust

by SilenceIsGolden15



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo 2k18 [25]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, Claustrophobia, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Keith (Voltron) Has Panic Attacks, Panic Attacks, Prompt: Facing Their Phobia, Space Uncle Coran (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 14:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilenceIsGolden15/pseuds/SilenceIsGolden15
Summary: It was just a little job, a little housekeeping task. Keith should be over it.He's not over it.





	There Will Be Dust

“Number Four? Could you help me with something for a moment?”

Keith looked up from his tablet with a blink of surprise. Usually he wasn’t Coran’s first choice for assistance with anything. If it was a problem with the Castle he usually went to Hunk or Pidge, or if it was cleaning, Lance (despite his endless complaining). They’d been on the ship for several months now and this was the first time he’d asked Keith for help. 

He carefully laid the tablet aside. “Uh, sure, yeah. What do you need help with?”

Coran bounced happily on his toes and waved for Keith to follow him down the hallway. 

“I need someone small to fit into the gaps between the servos and insert new AI chips I just whipped up. Usually I would ask Pidge, but she’s quite preoccupied with her Lion at the moment, and you know how she gets when she doesn’t want to be interrupted.”

Keith definitely did know, but something else Coran said had caught his attention. 

“So is it… a small space?”

Coran waved a hand dismissively. “It’s a bit of a tight squeeze, but I’m sure you’ll be fine. Hunk is always going on about how scrawny you are.”

Keith gulped, unease settling in his chest. It was true-- Hunk never stopped trying to get Keith to eat more-- but… 

He shook himself.  _ Suck it up,  _ he told himself sternly as he followed Coran ever deeper into the Castle’s maze of hallways.  _ Coran just needs help for two minutes. It’s not the end of the world. Get over it.  _

By the time he got his apprehension under control they’d arrived at their destination. It looked like a normal wall panel in the middle of the hall, until Coran pressed on a certain spot and the panel slid back to reveal what looked like a server room back on Earth, tightly packed wall to wall with glowing blue consoles. The gap between them had to be less than eight inches.

Keith clenched his fists to keep himself from breathing faster. 

“Now, here’s what you’re going to do,” Coran was saying when he tuned back in. “Just go down the line and at each servo insert one of these.” He held out a handful of little blue computer chips. “There will be a small tray on the top of each one for you to put them in. Perfectly simple.”

“R-right.” Thankfully Coran didn’t seem to notice the slight tremble in his voice as he reached out to take the chips. Already his heart was racing at the thought of going into that constrictive, dark void, but he bit his lips and prevented his hands from shaking with sheer force of will.

_ It’s fine. It’s just a room. Get over it.  _

Carefully, and with one last deep breath, he turned himself sideways and slithered between the two servos. The pressure of metal against his chest and his back made cold sweat begin to build on his brow, but he staunchly ignored his body’s reactions and inserted the first AI chip. Nothing turned red or exploded, so he figured he’d done it correctly and shuffled down the line to the next one. He tried to keep himself focused on the task: place a chip, shuffle over, place a chip, shuffle over. Don’t think about the pressure, or the closeness of the wall, or how the light diminished more and more with every step further into the room.

_ Get over it get over it get over it.  _

Finally he reached the last servo and slid the last chip into place, his shoulder pressed against the metal of the back wall. He knew there was sweat running all the way down his back by now and refused to acknowledge the fact. 

“Ok, Coran,” he called back to the entrance, “All of them are in.”

“Excellent! Just stay right there for a tick while I test that everything is working correctly.”

Keith’s mouth opened in panic, but before he could say anything the panel slid shut again and darkness descended like a piano in a cartoon. 

He froze in place. All at once he was horrendously aware of his heartbeat thundering in his ears, how loud his breath was when it bounced off the metal walls. The old familiar feeling of desperation rose in his throat like bile, and to his horror he even felt tears beginning to prick at his eyes. He’d only been in there for a few seconds!

_ Calm down. Calm down. It’s ok. Patience yields focus.  _

Instinctively he tried to take a deep breath, the way Shiro had taught him, but his chest couldn’t expand with how it was pressed against the console and all it resulted in was a spike of panic that almost made him stop breathing entirely. 

_ No no no! It’s fine! Get over it! _

Slowly, he began shuffling his way back towards the door, so that he could be out the moment Coran came back.  _ And he will come back,  _ he thought sternly,  _ he will. He isn’t going to leave you here in the dark.  _

It was so dark. Even with the gentle blue glow of the servos, the shadows loomed at the edges of his eyes, ready to pounce. He wasn’t afraid of the dark. He wasn’t. He just didn’t like being stuck in it was all. 

He reached the door and pressed his hand against it, hoping the cool metal would soothe his nerves. It did, a bit, but it also reminded him of different cold metal in the shape of a golden knob that wouldn’t turn no matter how hard he tried and wouldn’t yield and slowly warmed from his body heat--

He took his hand away. 

How long had Coran been gone? It didn’t feel like it had been long, but time had a way of warping in places like these. Half an hour could feel like years, and twelve hours would pass in the blink of an eye, lost in a haze of dried tear tracks and rumbling stomachs and aching muscles. How far away would Coran have to go to test the servos and come back? Was it far? Would he forget about him, still in the server room?

The fear that accompanied that thought was instant and consuming. Coran wouldn’t lock him in there on purpose, he trusted him enough to know that, but he could be scatterbrained sometimes. What if the servos worked and he forgot the door had shut and didn’t come back to get him? What if he got distracted by another problem on the way back? What if one of the other Paladins caught his attention? Keith never spent a lot of time with the others as it was and no one else knew he’d been helping Coran-- if he forgot no one would think it was weird he wasn’t around, no one would look for him, he could be stuck in the dark and the tiny constricting space for hours, maybe even for  _ days,  _ and what if they decided things were better without him around and they left him there and they  _ never let him out-- _

Keith didn’t even realize he was hyperventilating until the door suddenly opened and he stumbled out with a ragged gasp. Light blinded him and his knees hit the floor with a clang he couldn’t hear through the buzzing in his ears, the same buzzing that kept him from hearing when Coran said his name in concern. He had no warning before a hand landed on his shoulder and he yanked away from it, curling into the ball formation he’d figured out was the hardest to move. 

He sat there on the floor, trembling, and tried to breathe. 

“Number Four? Keith?”

The next exhale was a shudder.

“Are you alright, my boy?”

Right. Coran. 

He forced himself to nod and uncurl as much as he could manage. The lights in the hall were still bright but not blinding anymore, and Coran was kneeling beside him, concern written all over his face. Keith swallowed hard and made himself speak.

“I-I’m ok. Sorry.”

His expression didn’t change. “Are you sure? I’ve only ever seen Shiro react that way to things.”

Keith felt his lips turn down. Coran probably didn’t mean it that way, but all he could think was about how much Shiro had suffered, and how Keith should’ve been over this by now. 

“Yeah. I’m fine.” To prove it, he stood up. His knees were shaky and his limbs felt like static, but he wrapped his arms around his middle and said again, “I’m fine.”

Coran’s expression abruptly shifted back to a cheery one, though there were hints of remaining tension in the folds of his eyes. “In that case, are you feeling up to helping me with something else?”

His stomach dropped and he thought,  _ no, god no,  _ but he nodded anyway and shuffled after Coran once again. This time the Altean took him down a hall he’d only been in a few times-- this was where the Princess and Coran slept. Maybe he wanted help cleaning or something?

But no; he walked right past the doors to both his and Allura’s quarters and continued to the end of the hall. There he opened another door to reveal a large, dark room with a single pedestal in the center. 

Keith’s guts twisted at the dark space and he wanted to balk, but he kicked himself until he stepped inside. 

_ Get over it get over it get over it.  _

He shuddered as the door shut. 

Coran was standing to his right, fiddling with a control box on the wall. 

“What did you need help with?” Keith asked, hating how his voice came out cracked and thin. Pathetic. 

“Just wanted to test out the room, make sure it’s still functioning correctly. Do me a favor and picture a landscape, any landscape.”

It was a strange request, but with an internal shrug Keith obeyed, shutting his eyes and conjuring up the first image that came to mind. The windswept, sandy desert, thousands of cacti standing like vigilant soldiers against the rise of red cliffs, endless blue sky without enough moisture for clouds--

He paused. Something was different. It seemed so… real, like he was actually smelling the dust on the wind. He could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin, the chill of the Altean Castle receding from him like meat defrosting on a kitchen counter. 

Above him a hawk called, and  _ holy shit he was actually hearing that  _ and his eyes popped open. 

Impossibly, the room had vanished, replaced by exactly what he’d been picturing. He wasn’t in the Castle anymore-- he was in the desert. He was home. 

“This isn’t real,” he murmured, half to himself. He only remembered Coran was there when his voice responded, echoing against the cliffs.

“Technically it’s a hologram,” he said, boots crunching over the dust as he approached. “But it’s real enough, I hope.”

Keith sank to a sitting position on the pedestal. He didn’t know what it was for (hopefully it wasn’t important) but at the moment it didn’t matter to him so much. What mattered was how the sun lit everything up, reflecting off of the rocks to shine even into the shadows, how the space seemed to go on forever over the edges of the horizon, how the sky soared over his head in an endless wave. Already it was calming.

After a moment of contemplative silence, Coran spoke up again. 

“Is this what Earth looks like?”

Keith shook himself sternly, swiping at his cheeks just in case some errant tears had escaped his notice. 

“Some of it.” His voice was steadier now. “It’s called a desert.”

“Ah. How interesting.”

Keith cleared his throat. Coran had brought him here to do a job after all. He shouldn’t slow him down, even if the landscape was doing wonders for him.

“So is the room working?”

Coran chuckled. “Oh, I knew it was working. It was just a pretense. I assumed whatever you would conjure up would help you feel better.”

“Oh.” There was room in there for Keith to be defensive, but he was too tired to keep up his facade. Panic attacks were exhausting. Even with the fear receding he could feel the aftermath setting in-- he felt shaky and sick and tired, all he wanted to do was curl up in a sunbeam with that old wool blanket he had in his shack and sleep for as many hours as he could get away with. “What is this room for, anyway?”

Coran sat next to him on the grey pedestal. Not close enough to touch, thankfully.

“It’s where we store King Alfor’s AI.”

“So it’s for Allura?”

“The majority of the time, yes.”

The desert around them flickered. This room wasn’t for them, it was for Allura, a special place for her to feel connected to a home she could never return to, he shouldn’t be here--

“But I suppose it’s time we opened it up to the rest of you. Lance, in particular, I think would appreciate it.”

Keith let out an understanding sound and braced his arms on his drawn up knees. He didn’t want to leave yet. 

“How long can I stay?”

The smile was audible in Coran’s voice. “As long as you like, lad.”

With a thankful exhale, Keith leaned his head on his knees and felt the desert sun on his back. 

It was nice to be home, if only for a little bit. 

**Author's Note:**

> THAT"S THE LAST BINGO SQUARE!!!!!!!   
> Massive thanks to everyone who's read all of these, as well as everyone who left a request, you guys are awesome! Thanks for coming along on this ride with me.


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